30 June 2009 8:01 AM

On not wanting to know about Michael Jackson

I suppose I became interested in pop music when I was about 11, in 1962 or thereabouts.

I used to listen to Alan Freeman's Top Twenty programme on the BBC Light Programme, and later could sometimes conjure Radio Luxembourg out of the family transistor radio, though the old plug-in wireless wouldn't get it.

I can still remember the wavelength - 208 on the Medium Wave, also that of Radio London (266) the pirate station with the best reception in the South Midlands where I then lived, which flooded the air with the pop music of the mid-1960s.

It was aimed with brilliant accuracy at my generation, our yearnings and our self-pity, and I suspect that skilled advertising men and even musicologists were involved in writing and promoting much of it because they knew we had money to spend and would carry on spending it for years to come.

I suppose it's possible that it was an accident and a coincidence, but it was in that case the most lucrative coincidence in history.

Later on I completely stopped being interested in it - when I was about 19, and went to university.

I saw it then, and see it now, as an adolescent taste best abandoned, like sweet fizzy drinks, Che Guevara, chewing gum and denim clothes.

These reminiscences, which fill me with inward horror at the drivel I then enjoyed, are prompted by a comment from a Mr Pete Hindle, who writes to say: 'I find it amazing that you've never managed to hear a Michael Jackson song.

'You must obviously live in some bunker somewhere, ignorant of the real world - thus explaining your willingness to vote Conservative and proclaim David Davis a man of the people.

'And as for the Speaker for the Commons, you've got to be the first person I've heard of that thought it was a good idea for them to dress up like an idiot.

'You are aware that parliament is our elected body, not a historic recreation of bygone times, right?'

Oh, thank you so much, Mr Hindle, for so many opportunities at once to argue my position.

I don't find it at all amazing that other people are familiar with all this stuff and listen to it, and even seek it out.

I realise that there are plenty of people who don't share my tastes, who aren't my age, who dislike what I like or are indifferent to it, or who like what I dislike. I'm sorry about that, in many ways.

Proper music is far more potent and far better for the soul than the cheap stuff.

But I think that to find it 'amazing' would be to reveal myself as extraordinarily closed to the idea that other people make different choices from the one that I make. I'm not 'amazed' by Mr Hindle's tastes.

There's also a hint of conformist intolerance here.

I ought, in his view, to have 'managed' to hear a Michael Jackson song. I may well have done so.

What I said was that I hadn't knowingly or intentionally done so? Why? Why is he so sure that I should have done this?

Mr Jackson was not Mozart, let alone my model for musical achievement, J.S.Bach, and in my view his work will not endure beyond the age in which it was popular (The reverse is true of Bach. Many of his works, unknown at the time, are now much beloved).

Am I, as he says, ignorant of the 'real world' because I know little or nothing of Michael Jackson? Do I live in a bunker?

I think it's going to be hard for Hindle to sustain that argument.

I would say that I have more important knowledge of the real world than a familiarity with Mr Jackson's videos would give me.

This is partly through the immense privilege I have had of living abroad and still have of being able to travel widely, sometimes to rather unlovely places, partly because, as a writer of books, I'm required to read and study and research, partly because as a newspaper reporter I have spent the last three decades seeing at first hand what most people see at second or third hand.

Wherever that may be, it's not a bunker. Which of us is in truth more sheltered from reality?

Is it true, as I think it is, that Bach, Handel, Purcell, Gibbons and Corelli can say more in two minutes than Michael Jackson did in his entire life?

Is it true that Durham Cathedral is an immeasurably finer building than Centre Point, that Robert Frost is a better poet by hundreds of miles than Ted Hughes, that Rembrandt is a far greater artist than Picasso, and both of them in a different class from jokers such as Marcel Duchamp?

Can it be stated that Charles Dickens is a better novelist than Salman Rushdie?

Is it a pity that millions of people in this country have never been introduced to good music - and have, for example, been completely cut off from the great tradition of English church music that was a normal part of the lives of previous generations?

Can we actually say for certain that one thing is better than another, or more important than another?

If we can, and only if we can, we can also say that popularity is not a test of goodness, that the majority may be wrong, that education is better than ignorance, thought better than the other thing, order than chaos, beauty better than ugliness.

If we can't, then it's all chaos mingled with conformism, those who won't conform are to be scorned and perhaps punished, and nothing has any point beyond its immediate effect, the past and the future don't matter.

Which brings me to Mr Hindle's second superior jeer, in which he says that my attitude explains 'your willingness to vote Conservative and proclaim David Davis a man of the people. And as for the Speaker for the Commons, you've got to be the first person I've heard of that thought it was a good idea for them to dress up like an idiot. You are aware that Parliament is our elected body, not a historic recreation of bygone times, right?'.

How very unobservant Mr Hindle must be if he thinks I shall ever again vote Conservative.

I spend about half my time urging people not to do so, Mr Hindle, and am sorry you haven't noticed. I plainly have work to do.

Peter Mandelson is right in one thing, that you only start getting your message across to most people some time after you yourself have grown heartily sick of saying it.

Once again, the fact that Mr Hindle hasn't heard a defence of tradition before seems to mean more to him than it should.

Could that be because Mr Hindle lives in some sort of bunker with a 'No Traditionalists' sign over the door, and another placard saying 'people interested in history will be shot' dangling from the razor wire?

I have no idea. But it could be because his acquaintance and his reading are both just too narrow. He should get out more, intellectually at least.

But here's a thing. If Parliament had nothing to commend it except the fact that it was 'elected', I think it might have a hard time establishing its authority.

If anybody ever thinks about the process of election in this country (and few do) he realises that what happens falls well short of any ideal.

Two groups of people chosen in private meetings by the activists and leaderships of two established parties is placed before the electorate.

They are then invited to choose between them, and obediently do so.

Anybody who isn't chosen by either of these parties has virtually no chance of election. Most of the results are predetermined by boundaries drawn to ensure that this is so.

If the Iranians had to put up with such a system, I rather think we'd sympathise with them over it.

It's only because this method has grown up over time, and we respect Parliament because it's been a part of the national life so long, that we never think about it, and perhaps we should do so more often.

It would certainly be more useful and constructive to reform these two parties than to change the Speaker's clothes, a 'reform' which doesn't improve in any way the public's control over events, the freedom of debate or the fairness of the procedures of Westminster.

The point about traditions is that they remind us that things have origins, that they are based upon experience greater than any we may have in our lifetimes.

As Edmund Burke puts it, our civilisation is the result of a compact between 'the dead, the living and the unborn', in which the living listen to the experience of the dead though tradition and history, and are reminded by this that they are only leaseholders, who will themselves one day be dead, and must pass everything on to others - intact if possible.

If we know and respect our history, and observe these harmless and often picturesque traditions, we do not have to repeat these mistakes and are armoured against them.

The Speaker's robes and procession, the Black Rod ceremony at the Opening of Parliament and all the rest of it are a reminder and a warning, against tyranny, and against the tyrannies that revolution can create by being too self-righteous.

As I say in my book, 'The Broken Compass', it is not an accident that a country which has a Gold State Coach, a Black Rod and a hereditary Earl Marshal is also a country which does not have a secret police or torture chambers.

Funny, isn't it, that as all these supposedly worthless traditions come under attack, we become less free and more tyrannised?

"... all this ludicrous outpouring of grief for a stranger is totally typical for this... bubblegum society we now live in."

Yes, but surely the bigger question is: 'who created this society?' Was it the 'bubblegum' manufacturers, the image makers, or our politicians? Or, a combination of all three plus a few others I could think of?

My own view, for what it's worth, is that much of this story (and many others) is down to our tabloid press. Blaming the public for crass stupidity is surely missing the target.
The entire culture of celebrity has been manufactured by those who dictate the agenda; and, whilst perhaps aware of that old adage, ' why let the truth get in the way of a good story', we all start to fret that 'millions' - that sounds much better than 'thousands' - of our fellow citizens are, indeed, distraught by the news of the death of this man.

May I ask you two questions which are wholly unrelated with your latest entry? Even if you choose not to reply to me, although I hope you do, would you consider these questions as topics for future articles or blog entries?

1. What was it that made you change your political perspective so dramatically i.e. from being a left wing Labour party member to becoming a right wing conservative? Was it a gradual process or was it a sudden realisation? (I think you should write your autobiography, I would definitely purchase it).

2. Like yourself, I am an ardent Monarchist but I was wondering; what are your arguments for the Monarchy? I often debate with republicans about the benefits and importance of Monarchy in Britain but I was wondering why you think Britain would be worse of being a republic? Also, what did you think of the Prince of Wales's interference in the Chelsea Barracks planning process?

I have to take exception John Gartside's fairly idiotic post. I'm sorry that Michael Jackson is dead and that he won't be coming to London to try to restart his career and deal with his enormous debts. I'm sorry he wasn't able to come to terms with the vicissitudes life put upon him, being effectively public fodder since he was 7 years old. He does seem to show that success can try one's soul as much as failure.

BUT please DON'T claim that he is some kind of GOD! The Beatles were, without doubt, the biggest musical act of their time. But even amongst fans of popular and rock music, there are plenty who just don't rate them as either musicians or song writers! They rate such groups as the Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Who, just to name a few well ahead. Are you going to attack them as "reactionary" and "obstacles to progress"? That last one really galls me. What is this mythical “progress” that you claim our host is an “obstacle” to? Is it the progress where nearly half of each generation is now supposedly going to have to pay to go to university, where most of them will do junk degrees, and will be left heavily in debt and go on to take jobs which certainly don’t require university education – in other words are indebted for NOTHING. Or is this “progress” to have high levels of violent crime? Or high levels of bureaucratisation and government indebtedness, remember it was the high levels of debt as much as anything that slowed economic growth in Britain to lower levels than other West European nations during the post war boom. Except that debt was incurred fighting Nazism, and previously defending the nation during World War One. This debt comes from criminal incompetence and lining the pockets of certain rent seeking businesses! Or the foolish imagining that health can be measured solely by the amount of money spent on the NHS, not WHERE the money is spent.

Our host is right. If the new soft left really had the answers with their “progressivism” we should be living in paradise by now. He is, incidentally, only a columnist. He isn’t a senior civil servant. He isn’t a Front Bench MP. He isn’t Mary Whitehouse! How is he possibly an “obstacle to progress” or does he just inconveniently just challenge your assumptions?

Dearie me. Following on from his unfondly remembered "Bob Dylan isn't any good, you know" piece some weeks back, the sage of popular culture turns his attention to this new-fangled "pop", which of course is not "proper" music (eg dusty, cobweb-strewn and with as much vitality as a punctured lung) and which of course should be enjoyed and listened to by no one (it's all just noise you know). After all, an hour spent listening to such frivolousness is an hour that could be spent reading Keats, fighting the liberal elite, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty and defending the sacred institution of marriage from (etc etc, repeat as necessary in weekly column throughout year, await inevitable "you've hit the nail on the head" encomium from behind the privet hedges).

I jest. However as others have noted I find myself wondering why Bach and Michael Jackson have to be compared to each other to make the point that most pop is essentially cheap? We knew that. It's also fun. Y'know - recreation. Leisure. Amusement. Downtime). They can actually sit on the same CD shelf. Hang on to your hats, but in amongst my copies of Thriller, Blondie, Floyd and Bowie there sits the occasional Schubert and Beethoven CD. Crazy, eh?

Genuinely love the foreign reportage pieces, though - much better for the soul.

Steve Webberley makes his own point about knowing your subject superbly. I have never seen the phrase Radical Traditionalist used before except with regards to the aforementioned John Michell [Posted by: Guy Reid-Brown | 01 July 2009 at 09:08 AM] but his whole worldview (esp. read his 'Confessions of a Radical Traditionalist') chimes in with what Mr Webberley is saying. Recommended reading for Mr Webberley and others, I feel.

I think people are somewhat missing the point:

‘I agree with most of Mr Hitchens interesting opinions, but he is sadly wrong about Britain being a country with no secret police and torture chambers’

Posted by: KeithW | 01 July 2009 at 04:10 PM

That is rather the point Mr Hitchens was making – this wholesale mania for ‘modernisation’ (necessarily entailing destroying ancient protocol as Bercow has done) is totalitarian in nature, hence this process of destruction/modernisation is ‘paradoxically’ accompanied by the growth of a Police State.

Also:

‘this very paper has carried the Jackson saga as it's lead story every single day since the event of his death. So I think it is somewhat rich to try and take the BBC to task over coverage of an event which evidently has huge public interest, given that every news channel and paper is full of Michael Jackson’

Posted by: Pete Brant | 01 July 2009 at 10:30 AM

I don’t see that Mr Hitchens or anybody else here has to conform themselves to the Mail’s editorial policy – any more than Suzanne Moore does. Although the latter, supposedly a balancing ‘left’ voice, is much more of the Media World of which the Mail on Sunday is an intrinsic part than Mr Hitchens is. For example, Mme. Moore took the Jackson death as an opportunity to do a ‘reflection’ riff on the deceased’s life and what it meant. The whole point is really not how talented WAS Michael Jackson (and he didn’t even cover all the bases in the way that at least George Michael and Prince did in the 1980s), it is the completely disproportionate media driven deification of a popular entertainer. On that level, I personally think someone like Nick Drake would be far worthier of this sort of coverage but it would still be ludicrous if he got it.

Mark will appreciate this: the whole point was summed up beautifully by C S Lewis back in 1944:

“Monarchy can easily be debunked; but watch the faces, mark well the accents of the debunkers. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”

Portugal drug experiment pays off - the decriminalization of drugs works: [edited by admin: links not allowed] So put that in your pipe and smoke it! Also, I find it simply implausible that anybody who lived in the west during the late 20th century has not knowingly heard Michael Jackson's music. So you've never seen the video for Thriller or heard 'I want you back' by the Jackson 5? Yeah right, whatever. I also disapprove of the scale and nature of the media's coverage of Jacksons death, and I also love classical music, but Bach couldn't do the Moonwalk or sell 750 million records.

Ah yes, the real world. What of the reality of four airliners not just disintegrating but disappearing altogether? It "dissolved", a Welsh nationalist, socialist, atheist friend put it when I asked him what happened to the plane that hit the Pentagon. Neither (he says) is there evidence (let alone hope) for God, global cooling or indeed for mankind's survival. Few mainstream journalists, even Robert Fisk, are likely to publicly question the media story in their lifetimes. When you turn off the commentary and just look at the videos what do you see?

The media that gives us Neverland also gives us Afghanistan and Iraq. Patrick Hennessy says one of the most popular books read by officers there was Alice in Wonderland. Our compatriots and allies in South West Asia have experienced surreal horror, are acquitted of all crimes and return to their families. But try to imagine what their victims, the real inhabitants, go through. Currently, the most evil thing to glory in as media consumers (besides phosphorus bombs, depleted uranium, agent orange, land-mines, and cluster bombs) is the rise of the remote-controlled "drone". This combines Wonderland-Neverland with War of the Worlds--and we are prepared to pay whatever it costs for these thrillers. Perhaps Michael Jackson like the brave soldiers mentioned above, and many more had no choice but to cast off the real world.

"...it is not an accident that a country which has a Gold State Coach, a Black Rod and a hereditary Earl Marshal is also a country which does not have a secret police or torture chambers. "

Oh but we do! It's just in that quaint British fashion they are called Special Branch. As for torture chambers, any cell will do - as I've witnessed while serving in Northern Ireland back in the 70's.

We also have unaccountable paramilitary police squads who go into action with masked faces and ID numbers removed. I saw them during the fuel tax blockeds a few years ago when the friendly local Bobbies were withdrawn and these 'stormtroopers' arrived.

They've been around a while; when this was reported during the 1984 miner's strike, no-one believed it; but the pictures from privately owned digital cameras showed the truth during the recent G20 protests.

Golden coaches and fancy dress robes are a pantomime smoke screen behind which all manner of iniquites are carried out; far from being a warning against tyranny, it persists as a cover for it.

Mr O Barclay : "Pieces of classical music seem to consist of a same dreary chord repeated again and again for about 30 mins. And to top it all, there are not even any lyrics."

Having just this week bought all of AC/DC's studio albums I feel quite qualified to comment on chords!

Mr O, if there's one thing that makes the difference between popular and classical music, it's the complexity of the latter. At school and for a while after I both sang in a choir and also played the lead guitar in a four (and sometimes three) piece band. I hugely enjoyed performing in both.

Popular music depends highly on an obvious beat and a simple melody. But ... that beat and theme is still there in most of the classical music I've come across; it's just less to the front.

While typing this I've been listening to Jackson's Beat It and Billie Jean - pretty good songs and arrangements. A lot or the more complex stuff is hidden deep in the mix (whatever that means).

I was prepared to open my ears to other types of music many years ago. You, Mr O, ought to try to do the same. The worst that can happen is that you won't go deaf trying.

This post poses a question that has been bugging me for a day or two. If, as the writer reports, 'secret police' are known to exist in this country, they are not being very successful in keeping it secret. Or is there a lot of speculative guesswork going on? Can somebody please clarify the situation?

Let's face it, all this ludicrous outpouring of grief for a stranger is totally typical for the 'have it now, have it all, easy on the eye and ear, bubblegum society we now live in. All these people are gullible, they actually believe that Michael Jackson slept in an oxygen tent and could speak 'chimpanzee' to Bubbles his (poor) little monkey. Michael Jackson was a master at being bizarre for the sake of publicity and making money. He elicited enormous sympathy from the stories he told about his brutal childhood, which may or may not be completely true. His music was 'pop', popular, easy to listen to, easily forgotten and his dancing, whilst some of it was mildly talented, (though nothing like worthy enough of the absurd comparison with Fred Astaire), a lot of it was grotesque, crude groin pumping. On top of all that, he was accused on a number of occasions of being a child molester and paedophile which is thoroughly unsavoury and would normally have people up in arms. For some reason, these adoring fans, (perhaps because they are distanced from it) seem quite happy to ignore this suspect side of his behaviour. He may have been acquitted of the allegations but sadly that is probably more to do with his legal team than the truth. Looking through these eyes, the whole Peter Pan, Neverland thing seems pretty unpleasant. This is todays 'Diana' moment and I imagine people will eventually feel as silly as they did over the mass hysterical grief over her. Still, Thriller was a good album!

You talk of a comact. Between the dead the living and the yet to be born. Burke was a man of vision as that is the be all and end all. The meaning of life.
And strange that all but one political party choose to ignore at least the last and probable the other two to some extent.
And a police cell is a lonely place to an innocent that may be there for the crime of free speech. Like one lady reciting the names of dead soldiers at the cenotaph.
There is much wrong in this country Peter and your travells to far flung places didn't help the domestic situation one bit did they.
That one party being the BNP vilified from sun up to sunset by. Its chairman dragged though the courts for daring to speak out against the ills that beset us all.
The secret police are here. and have been for some time.
Forget about David Davis and start looking in the dark places here in England. Be careful though. you may just get your collar felt.

New Brutalism I believe is the art of exposed concrete, around in the sixties and early seventies. I don’t think its in vogue anymore, but never under-estimate the serpentine way the architectural world works. It seems you have to be in two camps, traditionalist or modernist. The best writer on architecture (apart from Dan Cruickshank) is Gavin Stamp. Although he admires some modern buildings, he right points out that in the 20th Century we have also had Scandinavian Classicism, the subtle invention of Edwin Lutyens (the last century’s finest), the high quality of Italian Fascist architecture to name but a few.
Stamp is also largely responsible for saving our Red Telephone Boxes, thanks to his work with the 20th Century Society. Check out his books, especially ‘Britain’s Lost Cities’, a well-written critique of post-war town planning. Like PH, he is pro-train, anti-car, proper music, not pop music.

At its best I find some modernist architecture exhilarating. But lets not deny that modernism is steeped in revolution and that many of its practitioners were Marxian. I also find it telling that the best practitioners, like Lloyd Wright and Aalto started off in the Arts and Crafts Movement and Nordic Classicism, both truly people orientated movements. Now there are some very good modern schemes like Accordia in Cambridge, this mixes contemporary with tested skills, and the Wales Millennium Centre blows Lord Rogers’ Welsh Assembly Building (some great sculptured word, but otherwise it feels a bit flimsy), clean out of Cardiff Bay, or any other body of water for that matter. I always thought that our architecture, like our culture as a whole is about adding invention to existing ancient skills, and blending these with a subtle mixture of influences, rather than revolution or pedant.

Durham Cathedral, one of the very greatest buildings of any area or Centre Point, a superior Sixties office tower by Col Richard Surfeit. Has to be the cathedral. Yes, the technology of the Surfeit tower is up to date, and it was well-intentioned, but a handcrafted cathedral has bags of soul and passion. I will agree that Poundbury is not without fault, I praise this though as one of our better housing developments, but it’s the layout and execution that make it strong, and in fairness some of the buildings as pretty, and subtly inventive. Butts Green in Warrington and Upton in Northampton for me are better schemes using radical traditionalism. And why do people (like myself) love Barcelona? Its well planned, and has truly radical traditional buildings of Antoni Gaudi. He mashed Art Noveau, Arts and Crafts and love of nature and Christ to astounding effect in his works. What we could do with more here, are movements a bit like this, building in context more and good heavily-planted town planning, even if it means Michael Williamson leaving his car at home.

Nothing wrong with building new classical buildings if they mix the needs of today with a true understanding of the classical language, rather than the Lord Burlington templates. When trains came along, we didn’t shoot our horses. We have a bigger cultural palate to work off now. For me, the best of the new classicists are Craig Hamilton (see his regeneration scheme in Penrith) and Robert Adam, better than Quinlan Terry, would is not doubt a talented executor, but bar Brentwood Cathedral, fails to put his personality on his rather pedantic work. Bad taste is one thing, craven taste is just as bad. We need to work for the best in everything, especially classicism. The worst building in the world? A serious contender must be The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest for its sheer terrible execution, like Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks going classical. Tragic.

Michael Jackson may have been a great dancer and made many good pop records for his era, largely helped by having a brilliant music producer in the inventive Quincy Jones but to compare him to Beethoven and Mozart is sheer absurdness in my view. I probably don’t have the best taste in the world, but there has to be a hierarchy and scale of quality for cultural works, and that there will always be ‘golden’ periods for artistic fields. It annoys me when self-appointed critics in the arts (and how the Guardianistas have hijacked these) blurt out statements like ‘Jackson as good as Mozart’. Is a Chippendale chair better than an MFI chair? A Faberge Egg better than a Kinder Egg? Fresh bread better than Chorleywood-method bread? A Bentley better than a Kia Picanto? I personally think so. Though both are very good, I think PH is a better writer than Roger Scruton. But when it comes down to certain cultural field, the expert or some especially studies in that field for me simply makes the better case. That is something I have learnt. In order to challenge an opponent, make sure you know your subject well, even it’s a subject you don’t much care about. You are more likely to win and win people over.

I agree with most of Mr Hitchens interesting opinions, but he is sadly wrong about Britain being a country with no secret police and torture chambers. He should try falling under suspicion for something of which he is entirely innocent, as happened to me. It is not difficult to see how the bullying, abuse and mistreatment one receives in such a case could drive an innocent person to accepting guilt. (I didn't). To make matters worse, the British SS take DNA samples, fingerprints and photographs, which I believe, according to an EU ruling, should have been destroyed when innocence was proven - I am unable to get any confirmation that this has happened. I have lived and worked for long periods in about 40 different countries, and now live in Romania. One of the reasons is that I definitely believe that the British 'police' and the Customs and Excise are easily the most oppressive, unpleasant organisations run by any state. I would like to see them completely re-organised and made far more accountable for their actions.

Contributor Mr O Barclay writes of hymns:
"It's embarrassing to see how few of today’s fat, drunken fans have any idea as to the tune or words of a simple, traditional hymn."

Perhaps you may be expecting to hear the hymns of one religion, sir, in the temples of another. To a young population largely trained from an early age to question everything - except of course that recommendation itself - and especially anything religious yet sensing, as most people do sooner or later, that their attempts to live by bread alone eventually fail to satisfy, some kind of substitute 'religion' begins to appeal. There are several alternatives, though not mutually exclusive, materialist religions available; some are devotees of money, others of sex and some of sport in general and most particularly of football.
I am not suggesting of course that anyone who enjoys watching the virtues of talented players necessarily does so from any religious zeal but fervour of a kind once associated with religions is undoubtedly aroused in some hearts by the game.
However, as I imagine is the case with most religions, it is one thing to watch and admire blessed practitioners and quite another to emulate oneself the virtue of the saints. I dare say that even football attracts more lip-service adherents than those who actually want to practise and train themselves.
I feel sure that I've sometimes heard chanting by football congregations, though the texts thus set to music seemed, when intelligible, to be of a scarcely uplifting character.

Michael Jackson may have been a great dancer and made many good pop records for his era, largely helped by having a brilliant music producer in the inventive Quincy Jones but to compare him to Beethoven and Mozart is sheer absurdness in my view. I probably don’t have the best taste in the world, but there has to be a hierarchy and scale of quality for cultural works, and that there will always be ‘golden’ periods for artistic fields. It annoys me when self-appointed critics in the arts (and how the Guardianistas have hijacked these) blurt out statements like ‘Jackson as good as Mozart’. Is a Chippendale chair better than an MFI chair? A Faberge Egg better than a Kinder Egg? Fresh bread better than Chorleywood-method bread? A Bentley better than a Kia Picanto? I personally think so. Though both are very good, I think PH is a better writer than Roger Scruton. But when it comes down to certain cultural field, the expert or some especially studies in that field for me simply makes the better case. That is something I have learnt. In order to challenge an opponent, make sure you know your subject well, even it’s a subject you don’t much care about. You are more likely to win and win people over.

New Brutalism I believe is the art of exposed concrete, around in the sixties and early seventies. I don’t think its in vogue anymore, but never under-estimate the serpentine way the architectural world works. It seems you have to be in two camps, traditionalist or modernist. The best writer on architecture (apart from Dan Cruickshank) is Gavin Stamp. Although he admires some modern buildings, he right points out that in the 20th Century we have also had Scandinavian Classicism, the subtle invention of Edwin Lutyens (the last century’s finest), the high quality of Italian Fascist architecture to name but a few.
Stamp is also largely responsible for saving our Red Telephone Boxes, thanks to his work with the 20th Century Society. Check out his books, especially ‘Britain’s Lost Cities’, a well-written critique of post-war town planning. Like PH, he is pro-train, anti-car, proper music, not pop music.

At its best I find some modernist architecture exhilarating. But lets not deny that modernism is steeped in revolution and that many of its practitioners were Marxian. I also find it telling that the best practitioners, like Lloyd Wright and Aalto started off in the Arts and Crafts Movement and Nordic Classicism, both truly people orientated movements. Now there are some very good modern schemes like Accordia in Cambridge, this mixes contemporary with tested skills, and the Wales Millennium Centre blows Lord Rogers’ Welsh Assembly Building (some great sculptured word, but otherwise it feels a bit flimsy), clean out of Cardiff Bay, or any other body of water for that matter. I always thought that our architecture, like our culture as a whole is about adding invention to existing ancient skills, and blending these with a subtle mixture of influences, rather than revolution or pedant.

Durham Cathedral, one of the very greatest buildings of any area or Centre Point, a superior Sixties office tower by Col Richard Surfeit. Has to be the cathedral. Yes, the technology of the Surfeit tower is up to date, and it was well-intentioned, but a handcrafted cathedral has bags of soul and passion. I will agree that Poundbury is not without fault, I praise this though as one of our better housing developments, but it’s the layout and execution that make it strong, and in fairness some of the buildings as pretty, and subtly inventive. Butts Green in Warrington and Upton in Northampton for me are better schemes using radical traditionalism. And why do people (like myself) love Barcelona? Its well planned, and has truly radical traditional buildings of Antoni Gaudi. He mashed Art Noveau, Arts and Crafts and love of nature and Christ to astounding effect in his works. What we could do with more here, are movements a bit like this, building in context more and good heavily-planted town planning, even if it means Michael Williamson leaving his car at home.

Nothing wrong with building new classical buildings if they mix the needs of today with a true understanding of the classical language, rather than the Lord Burlington templates. When trains came along, we didn’t shoot our horses. We have a bigger cultural palate to work off now. For me, the best of the new classicists are Craig Hamilton (see his regeneration scheme in Penrith) and Robert Adam, better than Quinlan Terry, would is not doubt a talented executor, but bar Brentwood Cathedral, fails to put his personality on his rather pedantic work. Bad taste is one thing, craven taste is just as bad. We need to work for the best in everything, especially classicism. The worst building in the world? A serious contender must be The Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest for its sheer terrible execution, like Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks going classical. Tragic.

Like many, I suspect I will always remember where I was when I heard the most sad news and as I attempted to come to terms with my grief at the passing of Michael Jackson, he who had inspired our lives through his great gifts, and as I scoured the internet for a fitting epitaph to this giant of music I alighted upon this gem in which many of those whose judgement we most trust (unlike the reactionary, bigoted and obstacle to progress, Mr Hitchens) give there considered judgement on this towering figure:-

For anyone interested, Yahoo 'News' has just posted an interesting, well, I say interesting, more like relevant to this thread, article called 'King of Pop's Body to Lie in State.' Apparently, there will be a public viewing of his body at his ranch. The article points out:

"The complex was where he kept his personal fairground and where he often entertained fans."

So THAT'S where he kept it. I had been wondering...

For any contributors on here wishing to attend (thinking of the chap who said he was a great artist) you will be pleased to know that:

"Butch Arnoldi, a spokesman for Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department, said: "Our guys are meeting as we speak with the California Highway Patrol to discuss the security issues."

Phew- that's a relief. How interesting! I wonder if they had any hob-nobs at the discussion?? If not, why not?

But it gets even more interesting (no really, it does):

"Londell McMillan said: "My clients are now aware after filings that a will has been presented. His various advisers are looking for additional documents." "

For which read: The vultures are circling...does anyone care about this meaningless stuff?

Right, now for the serious bit. For all those expecting the endless grand gestures, ie Elton John on TV showing us his pain, Tony Blair telling us how he grew up with Michael (ok, he hasn't said that, but it's the sort of thing he would say isn't it?), or the tributes that will never ever stop here's the big one...

"The King of Pop's tour promoter Randy Phillips, president of AEG Live, said he hoped there could be tribute concerts to Jackson....He said the show was going to be "beyond anything", adding: "At some point the world needs to see this production and I would imagine it could be done as a tribute with the family, with the brothers performing, some sisters, and the stars that were influenced by him.

'The world needs to see this production. It would have been, which is the tragedy here, one of the most amazing shows ever, so at some point we want the world to see that.' "

Groan: Thus do the endless tributes start. I don't want to sound like a wet blanket but does the world really 'need to see' this? Will I choke on my egg and beans if I miss it? Here's my miserly advice: Save your hard earned cash and watch it on the telly if you have to...or better yet, switch off said telly and go for a walk..fresh air is what you need!!

In all honesty the man undoubtedly had some talent even though he wasn't my cup of tea, but why do all these famous people have to be built up as some sort of grand legend? Presumably it's just PR for the up and coming concerts...

Yahoo has lots of little stories like this...it's great for 'news' if you're not really interested in news, if you know what I mean..

Regards from a grumpy old man (well, I'm not old, I just love having a bit of a moan sometimes)

Contributor Mr O Barclay writes:
"Pieces of classical music seem to consist of a same dreary chord repeated again and again for about 30 mins. And to top it all, there are not even any lyrics."

One of the big differences between modern western music since about the 1940s onwards and its predecessor-styles is this concentration on "chords" ( two or more notes played simultaneously) rather than on "melodies" (a succession of single notes conceived as a musical 'sentence'.)
I would guess that, since the primeval musical instrument has to be the human voice and since the human voice cannot - except in concert with other human voices - sing more than one note at one time, melody must have long preceded harmony in musical history and what musicians call "harmony" must have developed out of the counterpoint of two or more melodies being performed together.
However since the mid-20th century an alternative approach - much fostered by the predilections of some jazz musicians - has become by now so prevalent that melody seems to be assumed by many musicians to be subservient to, and to arise out of, chords.
I am no authority on the music of the late Michael Jackson but I have heard some of his earlier material (of around 30 years ago) - sometimes in concert, I'm told, with other members of his family - and what struck me about that music was not only its neatness and polish of execution but what seemed to me a pleasing recognition of the pre-eminence of melody and counterpoint above mere "chords".
As for your criticism of classical music's having no lyrics, if only that were true!
Even with the early Michael Jackson music, I personal enjoy it more when he seems to abandon actual words for the often staccato rhythmic 'punctuations' with which he seemed to delight in 'peppering' his melodies.

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